Saturday, January 7, 2012

Montreal Canadiens fans aren’t very happy these days. The team has been a disappointment all season, with a combination of injuries and lacklustre play leaving them well outside of the current playoff picture.

But apparently that's not even the biggest problem facing the franchise. That honor would be reserved for interim Canadiens' coach Randy Cunneyworth, who's hiring generated controversy because he can't speak French. Tension over that issue may be taken to new heights today, when Canadiens fans (or at least groups claiming to represent them) are reportedly planning a pre-game protest outside of the Bell Centre.

But while the language-based outrage is getting all the attention, it's actually only one of several demonstrations planned for today by fans in Montreal. As it turns out, Canadiens fans are fed up and they're not going to take it anymore.

So forget about which language the coach is speaking. Here are some of the other issues that Montreal Canadiens fans are currently upset about.

Whenever you call Montreal's 911 emergency line, the automated attendant doesn't get to "report a Boston Bruins body check" until like the third or fourth option.

The team has refused to release details of team captain Brian Gionta's recent health issue beyond calling it a lower body injury, which on that guy doesn't really narrow it down.

While it was nice to see them borrow our patented "stuff the ballot box to elect all your mediocre hometown players to the All-Star Game" move, foolish Senator fans forgot the part about including an unrestricted free agent for Brian Burke to overpay in the offseason.

Scott Gomez continues to score goals at a slightly lower rate than other similarly paid players, such as Cam Ward.

In addition to his lack of French, coach Cunneyworth often struggles to say even basic English phrases, such as "We played well tonight".

By the third period of every home game, Youppi is inevitably staggering around waving an empty whiskey bottle and screaming at small children about how 1994 was supposed to be the Expos' year.

Management now admits they recently gave a $23 million contract extension to Josh Gorges under the mistaken impression that they were actually paying for several players who were all named Josh Gorge.

Even if you've only got one copy to make, Pierre Gauthier never lets you go ahead in line at the photocopier until he's finished making hundreds of copies of his resume.

Carey Price is one of the absolute best goaltenders in the entire league and does not get enough respect from the wait a second did he just give up a goal in warmup? BOOOOOO!!!

Every time we're sitting around reminiscing about all of the great divisional rivalries we've had over the years, some Sabres fan gets all pouty and then we have to pretend to include them too.

In many Canadian provinces, even after a Habs fan has mentioned the team's 24 Stanley Cups it is still technically legal for a fan of another team to continue talking.

Look, nobody's saying that the franchise has retired too many numbers, but it does get kind of confusing cheering for a team of 20 players who are all wearing #86.

When Patrick Roy inevitably takes over as coach he'll be able to explain to the players exactly what it takes to win a Stanley Cup in Montreal in the modern era, which will be depressing because what it takes is for Patrick Roy to be your goaltender.

Every time we think that we've at least wrapped up the title of "most hopeless Canadian NHL franchise", we catch the highlights of the latest Flames game and realize how far we still have to go.

Fine, I'll publish in bullet points:- The Canadiens were consistently outstanding for nearly Roy's entire career in Montreal. Goal differentials: +47, +50, +36, +60, +97, +54, +24, +60, +46, +35. In the decade from 1984-85 to 1993-94, Montreal outscored their opponents by 509 goals over 808 games. - Here are the top 5 teams in the league over that time period ('84-85 to '93-94, W-L-T-Pts-Goal Diff): 1. Calgary: 433-274-101, 967 pts, +590 2. Montreal, 430-274-104, 964 pts, +509- 40% of Montreal's games had someone other than St. Patrick in the net. They were 170-128-45 without him.- 1986 Habs had the third best goal differential in the league, and appear to simply have been a victim of bad luck in close games as well as the tough Adams Division, where every team was .500 or better. - Montreal went 15-15-2 against division, and 25-18-5 against the league.- Montreal was in first place on March 13, 1993, then dipped at the end of the season.- They were lucky enough to avoid the top teams come playoff time, a significant factor in their success. In the two runs combined, Montreal never played a single team with more regular season wins than them, and they were probably the best team in all 8 matchups.- Roy played a total of 96 minutes of shutout hockey in OT. A valuable contribution, and a noteworthy one to be sure, but not such a singularly impressive accomplishment that it should automatically crown him as the greatest ever. There are a number of goalies that have strung together 2 or more shutouts in a row at key times in the playoffs, some of them even doing it against better opponents, yet without even a small fraction of the hype.- He was definitely advantaged by the teams he played on, which were nearly always dominant, even in Montreal, and even in 1986 and 1993. - The label he often receives of having carried a weak team to victory is undeserved.

Lee, your comments about goal differential don't really work in this argument as Patrick Roy played a huge part in determining this through the amount of goals he let in. If you check how many goals the Habs scored and compared that to the rest of the league and then compared their goal differentials it would be much more representative of how much Roy actually helped the team

Lee/Jordan: I think you're missing that this is A) A humor site known for exaggeration. B) based on a portrait of the "Stereotypical crazy Habs fan" who is likely not going to listen to a reasonable explanation of St. Patrick's hype.